The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Sorry Minnie

Sorry Minnie

"C'mon Sirius, you can't stay under there all day." Remus tugged at the duvet on the bed. Sirius had pulled it up over his head and was holding it there as he lay, curled up, refusing to move. "Please."

"I can," Sirius said, "And I will. It's my birthday, I can stay under the bloody blankets all day if I want to."

"We've got classes, mate," said James from across the room, where he was threading his tie under the collar of his oxford shirt. "Minnie and the lot will miss you."

There wasn't a reply from beneath the blankets.

"Sirius, please," Remus begged.

Sirius lifted the blanket enough so his face stuck out from beneath it. "I refuse to leave this bed until my hair is back to regular."

Remus sighed, "Sirius, that could take ye--" he stopped himself.

Sirius stared at Remus for a long moment. "Years? That's what you were about to say, wasn't it? That it could take years to regrow?" Sirius's voice trembled. Then, "I'll see you lot in 1982." He pulled the blanket back down over his face.

"Sirius!" Remus whined and he grabbed at the blankets. "C'mon, you don't turn 16 everyday... there's presents and cake and ice cream and fun to have."

Sirius shook his head and clutched the blanket all the tighter.

The door to the dormitory opened. James and Remus looked up, expecting Peter because he'd gone to get breakfast from the kitchens, but instead it was Professor McGonagall, and her face bore a worried expression upon it. Peter poked 'round from behind her. "I'm sorry," he said, "I... I ran into her and I had to tell her. Somebody had to know."

Remus stared up her with pleading eyes.

"The three of you run along to breakfast," she commanded, indicating Peter, James, and Remus. "Go on."

"But Professor, Sirius is --" started James.

"Mr. Potter, I'm not going to ask you again," Professor McGonagall said sternly, "Go and eat your breakfast."

The three boys reluctantly turned away from the lump on Remus's bed that was Sirius Black, and Minerva McGonagall watched as they went one by one down the stairs to the common room. She waited until she'd heard the portrait hole door swing closed again before she stepped into the boys' messy dormitory and closed the door behind her. Carefully, McGonagall picked her way around the minefield of clothes and quidditch gear that covered the floor, her eyes flickering suspiciously over the still broken chair at Peter's desk, and a few remaining kernels of popcorn strewn over the Sirius's untouched bed (literally, he hadn't laid on it even once this term).

She sat down carefully on the edge of Remus's bed and reached up, taking hold of the duvet and pulled it down to reveal Sirius Black, lying beneath it, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, tears pouring over the bridge of his nose. His poor shorn head as even worse in morning light than it had looked the night before, and one of the places that the spell had cut too close on faced up, a patch of pale white scalp showing among the black frizz. There was a knick there, too, where the skin his scalp had scabbed over. His eyes were bruised, nose still caked with a bit of the dried blood that he'd refused to come out from under the duvet to let Remus clean up completely. He had his knees hugged up to his chest, curling in upon himself.

Professor McGonagall reached her hand out and gently ran her hand over Sirius's head. He flinched, but she didn't stop. Instead, she brought her hand 'round to the front of his face and gently cupped his cheek, turning him to look up at her.